Prospect compiles a list of the top ten thinkers on technology, and Henry Jenkins, author of Convergence Culture, Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers, and the forthcoming Spreadable Media, comes in at number 3. Read the whole list here.
3. HENRY JENKINS
How are digital media affecting what constitutes “culture”—and what should it mean to educate the citizens of a digital world? Henry Jenkins, professor of communication, journalism and cinematic arts at the University of Southern California, is perhaps the world’s most influential and radical scholar addressing these questions.Born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1958, his early career explored how the relationship between readers and texts was transformed by new media and fan culture. Through books like 2006’s Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, he has since become one of the definitive chroniclers of online culture in all its frantic complexity. Jenkins is also the principal investigator for Project New Media Literacies, a group developing new educational methods for teaching engagement with contemporary media; while his work with the Convergence Culture Consortium is devoted to building links between academic researchers and the media industry in order to help the rethinking of consumer relations.
